The Muralist in Around the World in 80 Books

May 01, 2019 Georgia Carvalho rated it liked it

Began with a strong premise, ok execution, the end felt really rushed.

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Oct 04, 2024 Lisa of Hopewell added it

Shelves: audio-books, read-in-2015

With so much greatness this month, it is sad to have to say I wasn’t enthralled with The Muralist. Her portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt and various famous people, such as artist Jackson Pollock, was so cardboard–so lifeless, their conversation often stitled. Though the story involving Eleanor was completely believable–her sort of cause, her sort of left-wing organization, Ms Shapiro just did not breathe life into Eleanor at all. But, Eleanor did certainly a champion of helping artists with the W.P With so much greatness this month, it is sad to have to say I wasn’t enthralled with The Muralist. Her portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt and various famous people, such as artist Jackson Pollock, was so cardboard–so lifeless, their conversation often stitled. Though the story involving Eleanor was completely believable–her sort of cause, her sort of left-wing organization, Ms Shapiro just did not breathe life into Eleanor at all. But, Eleanor did certainly a champion of helping artists with the W.P.A. The plausibility of the story is not in question.

When writing historical fiction, which I do in my own writing, it is so hard to remember that while the author knows the outcome of history, the characters cannot. I felt the characters “knew” the outcome of history. They also seemed to fall into that other pitfall of historical fiction–taking on modern-day attitudes and sensibilities–though not as fully as in much of today’s historical fiction.

Like it or not (and I certainly do NOT) Americans of the 1930s and 1940s had little feeling for the Jews in Germany–outside of the Jewish community itself. Most people did not come to know of the death camps until the camps were filmed being liberated. Even the Jewish community itself had divisions–those wanting to assimilate and those of Zionist stripes. Certainly there were people working tirelessly to help the Jews trapped in Nazi Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Certainly there is blood on the hands of the U.S. State Department for withholding legitimately apportioned refugee visas.

Eleanor herself had outgrown upper-class elitism and anti-semitism, but she could not do more than advocate to FDR. She certainly would never have approved an assassination attempt. I highly recommend both No Ordinary Time and Blanche Weisen Cook’s fabulous biography of Eleanor to see what all she did to improve the lives of downtrodden people. For more on the Jewish visa problem, I highly recommend 50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple’s Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany–here’s a link to my review. ...more

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Nov 25, 2015 Kay Green rated it really liked it

Shelves: set-in-nyc

Loved this book - set in NYC right before the war. It is a fictional story of Alizee a young painter who is part of the beginnings of the Abstract expressionist movement. She and her friends (Pollack, Lee Krasner, and Mark Rothko) work for the WPA as artists while trying to work on their own paintings. There was a lot of info on how their paintings differed from the norm and what they were trying to accomplish. Eleanor Roosevelt also plays a part in encouraging the new style. This summer I was a ...more

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Mar 31, 2016 Andy Plonka rated it really liked it

Shelves: src

Reading rather than listening to this book is time well spent as it is much easier to keep the time frames and the characters' relationships clear. That being said, the real strength of this novel is the information about different schools of art and how different mediums require different skills. Speculation as to whether artistic genius requires mental instability is questionable to my mind. ...more

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